- Relationships within the community, between service providers and with other stakeholders such as police or ambulance services, as well as positive relationships among workers in a productive team, were key enablers for projects.
- Some projects reported that funding limitations and uncertainties:
- Made it difficult to deliver the number range, intensity or geographical coverage of services needed
- Restricted expansion and/or development of project activities
- Restricted their ability to ensure optimal employee supervision and staff recruitment
- Staff recruitment and retention difficulties, which were seen to be largely a function of the short-term NSPP funding, were commonly cited as a barrier to effective program implementation.
- The key relationship barriers identified were:
- Time required for relationship building
- Difficulties engaging external stakeholders
- Lack of clarity around roles and referrals between service providers
- Projects experienced difficulties in engaging with target groups due to:
- Poor attendance at events
- Social stigma relating to suicide which resulted in a reluctance to talk about suicide or seek help
- Competing priorities within settings such as schools and workplaces
- A range of additional challenges exist for projects targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, which can increase the time and resources required to establish initiatives.
- Projects reported that:
- Some project-specific design issues had impacted effectiveness
- Suboptimal data collection and evaluation limited their ability to measure effectiveness.
- Other suggestions by project staff for improving project effectiveness were:
- Larger funding amounts and longer funding periods
- Improving collaboration with, and coordination between, projects
- Providing support for organisations to improve capabilities in project development and evaluation